[4-21-2012 Update: I've added some new cosmetic tweaks, check the post at the end of the thread for the details.]

Here's the (nearly) finished cab, as of 6-19-2011... the original first post follows this pic:

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I probably started thinking about having a personal cabinet for MAME within days of downloading and playing a very early version, way back in 1997. I've been slowly collecting parts and doodling control panel plans pretty much ever since. I had thought I was about ready to actually start putting things together around 2003, going so far as to pick up a gutted cabinet at an auction, but not too long after that, I went and got engaged. That pretty much put the kibosh on any additional work for, well, years.

Yeah, I know. Priorities.

Anyway: last summer I dug out my old stash of Happ parts, bought a half-sheet of MDF, and went to work on a stand-alone control panel, with the intention of mating it (insert Beavis laugh here) to a cabinet at some unspecified date in the future. Here's what the parts layout looked like on a sheet of art-store paperboard:

I can hear you out there in the peanut gallery already: "ARRRGH! MASH GOOOD! PUTTIN'ONTHERIIIIITZ!" Yes, it's a Frankenpanel. Bite me.

I tried layout patterns literally for years trying to get down to the traditional 24" width, but finally just gave up and expanded the thing to 30" to accomodate all the parts. After accumulating a used Happ trackball, real Tron stick and a spinner, I was ready to plug the whole mess into the cardboard mock-up, here:

Still not a thing of beauty, but it was enough to reach a comfort level on the spacing. That led to laying out a template on actual (uh huh huh) wood:

After much pain, suffering, sawdust, and wood putty the panel top looked like this:

The end result was pretty awesome, or at least I thought it was (hey, my nephews agreed with me):

... but, confession time, one reason why it's so awesome is, I gave up on my crappy first attempt, bought additional sheets of MDF and HDPE, and started over, resulting in the photo above. This time, I brought in a friend with actual woodworking abilities and real tools, and he chopped out an embarrassingly (to me) perfect box and panel from my layout. Once I had it in hand, I did the under-panel routing, painting, lamination and t-molding installation myself. After that it was just a matter of putting in and wiring the controls:

I also added that shiny USB hub on the front panel (I just bought it because it was cheap, and didn't know it lit up until the first time I plugged it in) and a bright USB lamp, attached to the bottom of the box, to illuminate the trackball. I also added a couple of these recessed handles on either side for portability:

I really thrashed around on the cabinet design. First I wanted to use that gutted auction cab, but thanks to the new "wife-friendly" requirement, I passed on that one in hopes of getting the overall size down. I considered using an interestingly-shaped corner desk that I found in a local thrift shop for a while, but eventually passed on that as well thanks to the overall cheesyness factor.

Because I already have a repro Defender bezel (very sweet) that's 24.5" wide, I added an inch to the cabinet width, but other than that I've more-or-less followed that plan (minus my mistakes, of course). I'll be installing a 20.1" HP LP2065 LCD monitor behind that bezel.

So finally I worked up the nerve and went wood shopping. This el-cheapo chunk of OSB was the first victim, seen here laid out for cutting into a template:

... and here's the final "product" from that board:

It certainly wasn't perfect (there's a gash halfway up the monitor line), but the problems were fixable. So I applied trusty wood putty, let it dry, and the next day took a swing at the real thing, some 5/8" plywood (based on the experience of the control panel, 3/4" MDF, I really wanted to keep the overall weight down for the cab):

Again, the end result was pretty rough. I learned very quickly that I am not wise in the ways of pattern-bit routing. But I sanded and puttied, and laid everything up to dry again:

That was yesterday. Today, I surveyed the damage and determined that the patient might just be savable. Much more sanding ensued, as well as a build-up of the 2X4 base:

As it turned out, I miscalculated somewhere on the dimensions [EDIT: that was because, counter to all logic, what I've been calling a "2x4" my entire life actually turns out to be a 1.5x3.5... see, I told you I wasn't a carpenter], and had to add an additional 2X4 to one long side of the box to get it matched up with the already-cut cab sides... which was actually okay, since more strength and stability won't hurt me any. The sides and front panels of the cab are going to be laminated, this time with 1/32" black laminate, but it'll be a while before I get to that point.

That's it so far. Next weekend: cutting the marquee box, control panel shelf, interior supports, and hopefully, building the whole thing up into something that sort of looks like an arcade game. Maybe if I'm lucky, the monitor mount. I have a nice means of mating up the control panel planned that I think y'all will like. Lots more to do...

A question for the group: the plywood is factory-sanded on one side, and rougher on the other (B/C grade). I had planned to put the "rough" side on the exterior and laminate it (after working it over with my orbital sander, natch), and just painting the small interior portions that will show after it's all put together. Whaddaya think? Bad idea?

You are good to go with laminating on the rough side and exposing the smooth side. the laminate is thick and stiff enough to not be affected either way. Now, marbled contact paper on the other hand . . .

Got a little done after work today... finished up the base, added leveling glides, and drilled for the base-to-sides connections. I'll disassemble this shortly to build the inner bracketing, but here's the basic frame:

Planning to do the inner bracing, control panel shelf, monitor mount and marquee box this weekend. I'd really like to have it close to finished by the end of Memorial Day, but that's pretty ambitious...

This was just for grins, to see how well the CP balances with the side panels. There are a few degrees of slant on shelf cutouts, but not enough to matter based on this, particularly since it'll be held on at the back by a pair of brackets:

Got a lot done this weekend, to the point where if you squint a little, it actually looks a little like an arcade game, as opposed to a randomly-collected pile of lumber, wood putty and screws.

The marquee box is in, including a top vent and speaker holes:

Figuring out how to securely mate up the already-existing control panel to a new cabinet was a challenge, but then I stumbled across these babies for less than $3 each at Monoprice (aka, the most awesome company on the internet):

I installed the CP shelf and back panel today, seen here after some router work to coutnersink the backs of the brackets. I also doubled up the back panel after seeing how much it flexed after material was removed during routing:

Here's what the control panel-cabinet link looked like before routing the back panel:

... and after. Not a huge change (and nothing you can really see in these crappy pictures), but I like the way it came out:

Here's a longer look at construction as of this afternoon. The monitor crosspiece you see here is not actually connected to anything yet:

I also routed out the t-molding channel, which as promised by Donkbaca, was a piece of cake. After using a third Monoprice bracket to mount the monitor on its crosspiece (not pictured), I figured I might as well mock up what the thing might look like when it's eventually finished. I've been hoarding various cosmetic parts for the better part of a year now... what you see below is just a thought, held together with masking tape, scrap wood and friction, so go easy on throwing things...

Next weekend: mount the monitor, bezel, marquee and hopefully, the control panel light assembly seen above, along with the back panel, keyboard drawer, and coin door. If I get all that knocked out in time, I'll move on to painting the inside and laminating the side panels and coin door. After that, on to the electronics.

In the meantime, I'd appreciate any suggestions on mounting the bezel (it's a Defender repro, in case you were curious)...

Things continue to progress... I think I've worked out how to mount the front-side cosmetic pieces, and almost all of the remaining parts are either in-hand or on their way.

As I inch towards getting out the paint (the laminate is on order, but may not arrive by the weekend, unfortunately), a question occurs to me. I'll probably disassemble the cab to paint it. I'm wondering about when I get to putting everything together for the last time, meaning before the laminate goes on the sides and covers up all the screw heads. Should I glue the pieces together at that point (minus the access panels and such, of course)? Or just go with the [beavis] heh heh heh [/beavis] screws? I have a glue gun with wood glue, as well as a big tube of Gorilla Glue. Wouldn't add all that much new work, just additional time to let the glue set.

PVA (yellow wood glue) gets most of it's strength in an hour. Gorilla glue about 2 hours. However, if you are screwing as well, the screws will hold it while the glue sets so you can keep on trucking without waiting. Don't forget to follow the directions with the gorilla glue (wipe the joint with a damp cloth before gluing)

TJ, I feel your pain; my freshman comp professor accused me early and often of being far too fond of parenthesis way back when (he had a point).

Had today off work, but got less done than I would have liked... First a trek across Atlanta to pick up the laminate (the Wilsonart warehouse turned out to be a lot farther away than I'd thought), then an emergency refueling stop at Ann's Snack Bar (look it up). Finally back to the garage, where I toiled over the bezel mount for entirely too long. Had to cut a sheet of clear acrylic for covers to both the bezel and marquee, and also had to trim the marquee (an "Encom Tron" I picked up from a guy on KLOV last summer), which turned out to be the most annoying task of the day. I also cut out the rear panel (I considered hinging it, but I think I'll just screw it on), front lower door, and keyboard drawer parts, and added a hardboard "floor" to the main cargo hold. Still struggling with mounting the (genuine, if beat-up) Tron over-control-panel light.

The marquee mount was one of the easiest things of the whole build... got a 6' length of plastic corner protector at Lowe's, cut two pieces to size with tin snips, and drilled screw holes. Other than painting (later), boom, done.

Couple of pics from today's progress, such as it was:

All cosmetics (other than the bezel, which is pretty much where it's going to be) are temporary placement at this point. The door on the bottom will be cut for a coin door plate in the center, hopefully sometime tomorrow.

I had my doubts at the top of the thread, but it improved as I read on. I think it looks pretty good. That panel is a bit much though... What games are the 3 random buttons on the left, under the stick for?

I had my doubts at the top of the thread, but it improved as I read on. I think it looks pretty good. That panel is a bit much though... What games are the 3 random buttons on the left, under the stick for?

Defender/Stargate.

If I had the panel to do over, I think I'd knock back the button count considerably. After a year of using the thing, most of the "fighter block" buttons have gone largely un-pushed. Defender/Stargate setup on the left, maybe three buttons on the right, and that would be it.

Finished most of the construction work Saturday and Sunday, including the monitor mount. Still have to attach the front door and build the keyboard shelf. I spent entirely too much time putting together a bracket for the above-control-panel light fixture, which by far was the most time-consuming component of the cab to build (in no small part because I was designing on the fly). Wooden corner protector trim from Home Depot was a big help here, as well as for the lower bezel mount. For the top bezel mount, I just cut the lower plank of the marquee box in two, and moved the rear half back about a half an inch.

After all that, a coat of primer, then this morning, the first coat of flat black. It kind of looks like ass right now, but again, this is just the first coat, and fortunately very little of the painted surface will be visible under normal circumstances... the side panels, lower door and shelf front will all be laminated. Probably won't get to that before next weekend, though. For now I'll let this coat dry, and take the wife to a baseball game.

Some new pics:

Minor update: The second coat did improve things quite a bit, but I'm still glad that most of this paint job will be hidden. Other than possibly assembling the back portion of the control panel light, I doubt I'll get much more done on this before Saturday. Then it'll be lamination time.

So today: laminate. I started with the side panels. Based on the experience of laminating my control panel last year, I was concerned about laminate scraps getting stuck under the router and gouging out chunks while I trimmed, so I covered the area where the router would be in contact with painter's tape. Seemed to work well... side 1 is basically complete, I've flipped the cab over (with a blanket under the new laminate) and applied glue to the parts for side 2. Letting the glue dry down right now before I finish up. Still to do after that: laminate the coin door and keyboard shelf door (probably won't get to that one until later, as I haven't actually built the drawer yet, but it'll be a very simple job [EDIT: Famous last words... actually took about half a day to get that damn thing right.]). If I can ever find my mallet, I'll put the t-molding on today.

Some pics:

Almost finished with trimming here:

UPDATE: Okay, both sides and the coin door are laminated. Getting pretty close to declaring construction finished. It's now entirely too hot in ATL to do much more today, though.

Minor update, no pics... completed all the lamination, and spent most of Sunday getting the t-molding installed (as they say on South Park "... badly") and endless fiddling with the keyboard drawer... what a PITA, but at least it's done. Touched up the paint a bit after that and then called it a day on account of it being entirely too damn hot outside. Only remaining construction is attaching the front door and CP light fixture.

Really looking forward to getting this sucker indoors and putting the computer together. After four weekends of work, it's high time this thing became a game instead of a chore...

Didn't get nearly as much done this weekend as I'd have liked... did finally move the work indoors, which given the godawful heat in Atlanta is a triumph in and of itself. Finally finished the over-CP-light fixture, but the UV cold cathode tubes from Fry's basically suck, so I'll be replacing them later with a proper black light.

Got the marquee and computer components installed (the DVD drive you see below is temporary, and the subwoofer--such as it is--hasn't been fastened down yet), but the cheap-ass Pentium 4 I'd selected for the CPU turned out to be unsuitable for various reasons, so actually installing the OS's (OS X and XP on separate partitions) is on hold for a few days while I wait for a Core2Duo to arrive. I did get the speakers and speaker covers put in along with the marquee and a few other minor parts. As you can see, I need to trim back the support strips at the top corners of the marquee box. Crappy pics follow (yes, there are two keyboards there... don't ask)...

Six weekends worth of work, and I think I'm about done with Version 1.0 of this cab:

The only even semi-major thing that's left to do is install the hinges on the front door... nobody locally had full-inset hinges available, so I'll be getting a set by mail sometime this week. I also plan to add a PowerMac G4 tower's motherboard for OS 9 games (that era of MacMAME and Vectorama both handle vector games better than any other emulator IMO, plus it'll be fun to play X-Wing in an arcade cabinet), but until I can get ahold of an Apple Service Manual to figure out how to separate the damn thing from the case, that'll be on hold. I have the KVM already, and may just stick the whole tower in the cargo bay in the meantime.

But for now, the main brain is up and working: Core2Duo 2.13GHz CPU on an Asrock Conroe motherboard. Right now I'm running OS X 10.6 (retail install), and I'll add dual boot for XP eventually... haven't really played around with MAME on the PC side, so I'll also be jumping into the world of Windows front ends for the first time. I'm still sorting through various MAME versions/frontends on the Mac side to see which ones I like the best. I've also added Stella and Mugrat (Colecovision), and will probably be getting a pair of USB-ized 2600 joysticks later; they'll plug in through that USB hub on the front right corner of the control panel box when in use.

Some more pics:

I'll post the parts list (or at least as much as I can remember) later, along with some of my distressingly-large "blooper reel" of woodworking screw-ups. In the meantime, the cab, he is (nearly) done, and I've got some game time coming my way.

What to call it? Maybe I'll start a poll... FrankenTron? Happy Tymes? (My hometown arcade when I was a kid.) Back In Black? Dunno. Feel free to add your suggestions... and many, many thanks to the group and to the BYOAC site going way, way back. No way could I have done anything like this without that vast archive of experience, plans and tips. Particular thanks to Saint, Knievel, Epyx and EvilNuff for all the bits and pieces of their designs and techniques that I've shamelessly ripped off.

I'm officially done. Got the hinges in yesterday and installed them and the main door this morning. I also have XP loaded on a second drive, but other than ROM management, I don't plan to use it much (ROMLister is, so far, the most useful sorting app I've found); between MAME+GUI, MAMETunes, MAME Library and EmuLaunch, I'm well-covered on the Mac side... primarily using MAME+GUI for in-depth gaming and EmuLaunch (both running SDLMAME) for guests and the wife. Besides which, trying to configure a Windows front end is entirely too much like being at work. (ducking) I really love being able to display overlays, bezels and backgrounds in SDLMAME.

So I'm officially declaring The Cab With No Name 1.0 finished. Thanks to those who offered suggestions, and as noted above, to the group as a whole for this great resource. For Rev. 1.1, I'm going to build a Star Wars yoke controller box, and I still may install the G4 PowerMac board in the cab for older emulators, but not today.

After having played with TCWNN for about a year, I decided to make a few upgrades and tweaks. On the control panel, I've replaced the old 4-way red-ball joystick with a lighted ball stick (from Paradise Arcade shop), and also replaced the coin and player start buttons with illuminated pushbuttons (ditto). All these pictures are taken from a darkened room, mostly because it looks cool that way:

The player buttons bug me, because the inserts are loose under the button top, and spin around (you can see they're off-center in this picture) when pushed. Anybody know of a good way to fix them in place?

Inspired by rockyrocket doing the same thing on his "Diet Tron" (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=119040.0), I also replaced the crappy old cold cathode tubes above the control panel with a proper black light, as Kevin Flynn intended. Having done that motivated me to open up the marquee and decase the existing fluorescent light to get rid of the shadowing in the upper corners. All in all, a considerable improvement, I think:

The front end is EmuLaunch, if anybody was interested.

For my next trick, I'm going to replace the standard microswitches on the "main" pushbuttons with micro-leaf switches (already in hand, I've just been lazy about doing the re-wiring). I'm also in the midst of replacing the original repro Defender bezel on plexi with a sheet of Graylite 31 (but also with a reprinted Defender bezel card... because I like it). The Graylite really looks great compared to the old plexi, much more "pop" from the colors (not in place yet in these pictures).

I'd also like to eventually replace the bat sticks on the two Happ Competitions with lighted ball sticks, but I'm not in any particular hurry to get that done.